Leaving Landless near the door, Win-Grace Porringer dragged a keg to the side of the settle, and sitting down upon it, approached his death mask of a face close to the face of the mender of nets, and commenced a whispered conversation. To Landless, awaiting rather listlessly the outcome of this nocturnal adventure, came now and then a broken sentence. "He hath not the look of a criminal, but—" "Of Puritan breeding, sayest thou?" "We need young blood." Then after prolonged whispering, "No traitor, at least."
At length the Muggletonian arose and came towards Landless. "My friend would speak with you alone," he said, "I will stand guard outside." He went out, closing the door behind him.
The mender of nets beckoned Landless. "Will you come nearer?" he asked in a quiet refined voice that was not without a ring of power. "As you see, I am lame, and I cannot move without pain."
Landless came and sat down beside the table, resting his elbow upon the wood, and his chin upon his hand. The mender of nets put down his work, and the two measured each other in silence.
Landless saw a man of middle age who looked like a scholar, but who might have been a soldier; a man with a certain strong, bright sweetness of look in a spare, worn face, and underlying the sweetness a still and deadly determination. The mender of nets saw, in his turn, a figure lithe and straight as an Indian's, a well-poised head, and a handsome face set in one fixed expression of proud endurance. A determined face, too, with dark, resolute eyes and strong mouth, the face of a man who has done and suffered much, and who knows that he will both do and suffer more.
"I am told," said the mender of nets, "that you are newly come to the plantations."
"I was brought by the ship God-Speed a month ago."
"You did not come as an indented servant?"
Landless reddened. "No."
"Nor as a martyr to principle, a victim of that most iniquitous and tyrannical Act of Uniformity?"